"Very much there," was the answer. "This old rascal of mine was right in the thick of it."
"You English have all the luck!" exclaimed Bart enviously.
"English nothing," replied the operator. "I"m an American just as you are. My name is Stone, Will Stone, and I was born in Detroit."
"Bully!" exclaimed Frank, and there was a general handshake and introductions all around.
"But how did you get over here before the rest of us?" queried Bart.
"Well," laughed Will, "you know Windsor in Canada is just across the river from Detroit and I slipped across and enlisted with the Canadian troops. I knew a good deal about automobiles--everybody in Detroit does, because there are so many plants there--and when these tanks were ready for use and they called for volunteers I was Johnny-on-the-spot."
"You chose a hot branch of the service, all right," commented Tom. "If you were looking for excitement I guess you got it."
"You"re a good guesser," grinned Will. "When you"re climbing over trenches and crashing through walls and rooting up trees, with bullets pattering against the sides like hailstones on a roof, the fellow who can"t get enough excitement out of it is pretty hard to please. But come along, you fellows, and I"ll show you over the old shebang if you care to look at it."
They needed no second invitation, and for the next half hour there was a volley of questions and answers as they examined the offensive and defensive qualities of the grim monster that had carried consternation into the German ranks.
"Well, so long, fellows," said Will, when at last he climbed into the tank and set its unwieldy bulk in motion. "Here"s hoping that we meet again soon."
"In Berlin, if not sooner!" Frank shouted after him.
A few days later one of the French colonels visited the camp. After his formal reception by the American officers he made a tour of inspection, going among the men, looking over the barracks and asking innumerable questions.
There was an absence of pomp and ceremony about him that was characteristic of the French officers who, perhaps more than those of any other nation, live on terms of simple comradeship with their men, and the boys, to use Billy"s phrase, "cottoned to him" at once.
Unfortunately he knew little English and as the boys knew still less French, conversation was halting and difficult. The officer"s delight then, can be imagined when, on addressing a question to Frank, the latter responded in French as pure as his own.
"Why, my boy," said Colonel Pavet, "you speak as though you were a son of France."
"A stepson, perhaps," replied Frank, smilingly. "For my mother is a daughter of France!"
CHAPTER XXII
A PROMISE OF HELP
There was a gratified exclamation from Colonel Pavet, and a new light came into his eyes. The magic name of France had abolished for the moment all distinctions of rank. The officer reached out his hand and took Frank"s in a hearty grasp.
"Then you are fighting for two countries," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"Yes," laughed Frank. "I"m luckier than most of the fellows."
"In what part of the country was your mother born?" asked the colonel with interest.
"In Auvergne," Frank replied.
"In Auvergne," repeated the officer, with vivacity. "Why I come from that part of the country myself. What was your mother"s family name?"
"De Latour," said Frank.
"There is another coincidence," cried the colonel. "I know the family well. Their estate was only a few miles south of ours. Her father was an old comrade in arms and served in the same regiment with me when we were stationed in Algiers.
"Many"s the time we"ve ridden and messed and fought together against the Bedouins. He"s dead now," he continued, a slight shade crossing his face. "How proud he would have been were he alive to know that his grandson was fighting for France.
"Let me see," he went on. "I"ve been a long time away from Auvergne but it seems to me that when I was last there, I heard some talk of trouble in settling his estate--some lawsuit or other, that tied the property up. Do you know anything about it?"
"Yes," replied Frank. "My mother has been worrying over it for some time past. She was just about to sail for France to see about it when the war broke out."
He rapidly sketched the details of the legal trouble with which his mother had made him familiar. The officer listened attentively and with marked sympathy.
"It is too bad," said Colonel Pavet. "I will see what I can do. I have a good many friends in Auvergne and there are many, too, who honor the name and memory of De Latour and would do all in their power to help his daughter.
"And when I tell them that their daughter"s son is fighting on our soil they will redouble their efforts. Count on me, my boy. This terrible war may delay matters but I will not forget."
The too parted then, leaving Frank with his heart beating faster at the thought of what might come from this most unexpected meeting.
Now he would have something to write home to his mother that would thrill her heart. That very night the letter should be written, the letter that was so eagerly awaited, always, in that lonely house at Camport, but that this time would receive even a more joyous welcome than usual.
What a strange twist of fate it would prove if this trip to France, undertaken in a spirit of pure patriotism, should reap a double reward in lifting the burden that had weighed upon his mother"s heart for years!
One day a sham battle had been planned that embraced a front several miles in length and Frank"s company was detailed to take up a position in a wood at the extreme left of the line.
The boys welcomed the a.s.signment, for it was to carry them into a section of the country that had up to now been unfamiliar to them, and it afforded a diversion from the ordinary drill of the training camp.
They set off in high spirits after a hearty breakfast, and after a hike of four miles reached the bit of woodland where they were supposed to await the attack of the enemy.
"Gee!" exclaimed Frank, as he filled his lungs with the balsam of the woods, "this is great. It"s enough just to be alive on a glorious morning like this."
"It"s a little bit of Eden," declared Bart, as he looked about him.
"Listen to those birds singing. If it weren"t for the boom of cannon off there you wouldn"t know there was such a thing as war in the world."
"Yes," chimed in Tom, "but there was a snake in Eden, and there"s another one in the world now, that"s got to be scotched before the world can rest in peace."
"Well, these woods have escaped so far," said Billy, as he looked around at the n.o.ble elms and birches.
"Yes," a.s.sented Bart, "and I guess they"re safe. The German tide has come a good way into France, but I have a hunch that it"s about spent its force."
"If the Huns get here they"ll have to come over our dead bodies," said Tom.
It was some time before, in the plan for the sham battle, the enemy was expected to approach this copse of woods, and, with sentries posted, to detect and give warning of an approach, the rest of the men had been permitted to break ranks and do as they pleased. Some had thrown themselves on the ground in all sorts of sprawling att.i.tudes, others were smoking and chatting together, while still others wandered to the edge of the woods and gazed over the broad plateau that stretched for more than a mile to the left of the woods. The sky was cloudless and the sun was shining brightly.
The monotonous boom of the distant guns, sounding like the roar of waves upon a beach, kept up unceasingly, but the boys had got so used to it that they scarcely noticed it.
But suddenly, among these ba.s.s notes came another sound, or series of sounds, sharp, shrill, metallic, which they had already learned to identify as the popping of anti-aircraft guns.
"That sounds as though they had sighted one of the Hun aeroplanes,"
commented Frank.